06 Nov 2018 | EVs Save The Day For UK Car Industry, Nissan Expands Charging Network and Chinese Model 3 Buyers Could Get Theirs In March

Good morning, good afternoon and good evening wherever you are in the world, welcome to EV News Daily for Tuesday 6th November 2018. It’s Martyn Lee here and I’ve been through EV story today so you don’t have to.

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CHINESE MODEL 3 BUYERS COULD GET THEIRS IN MARCH

A tweet from Vincent kicks us off: “Breaking: Tesla might be ready to deliver Model 3 to China, friend of mine received delivery notice March 2019”.

And it looks like the battery production for the cars, when they’re made in China, will be local. ELon has tweeted: “Tesla will manufacture all battery modules & packs at China Giga, as we do today in California & Nevada. Cell production will be sourced locally, most likely from several companies (incl Pana), in order to meet demand in a timely manner.”

What we know so far: Tesla moved Shanghai Gigafactory 3 up as a priority following trade tariffs being introduced. They have 1300 acres of land and we’ve seen pictures of the earth movers already in, and preparing the land.

Then in the Q3 Shareholders Letter it was confirmed: “In order to significantly increase the affordability of Model 3, we have decided to accelerate our manufacturing timeline in China. We are aiming to bring portions of Model 3 production to China during 2019 and to progressively increase the level of localization through local sourcing and manufacturing. Production in China will be designated only for local customers”

My question is how quickly they’ll be able to begin assembling parts, not full production. China is well known for putting up building in a weekend and large infrastructure projects, where there’s a political will, being done in the time it would take the USA to approve the plans. But 4 months from now to start assembling some sort of car? Surely not. So next year are we talking Model 3’s made in Freemont and exported, or how much of the production of a car, what’s the percentage of assembly needed to avoid tariffs. If you shipped in the body and bolted in a Chinese-made battery pack, is that enough? How can they avoid that 40% import tariff?

COMMUNITY TESLA BATTERY TRIAL

“Australia’s first community battery trial went live on Monday, after the 52 available spots had been snapped up by Mandurah households – three months ahead of schedule. The trial involves a bulk Tesla battery integrated into existing grid and owned and operated by Western Power and Synergy.” according to PV magazine: “A 105 kW (420kWh) Tesla battery in the Mandurah suburb of Meadow Springs will allow the customers to store excess power they generate during the day from their solar PV systems, and then draw down on it during the peak evening period. At a cost of $1 per day, each customer participating in the 24-month trial will be able to virtually store up to 8kWh of excess power generated during the day from their solar PV systems in the battery. The 8kWhs storage, which is enough to power the average suburban home for over one hour during peak time, will be available any time after 3 pm each day.”

Fred at Electrek reports on this little war of words between Tesla and Daimler which has rumbled on: “Roger Nielsen, president and CEO of Daimler Trucks North America, made some interesting comments about the effort when speaking at American Trucking Associations’ annual Management Conference & Exhibition last week (via Fleet Owner): In response to a question about a possible delay of deliveries of Tesla’s electric Semi to 2020, Nielsen said it was not just a race to market. “The best battery solution is going to win,” he said of the electric truck market. “It’s all about energy consumption.”

He said that after meeting with customers interested in electric trucks, he determined that they prefer to stay with vehicles they know and it’s why they will choose the eCascadia, an electric version of the diesel-powered Cascadia, over a new Tesla Semi.

He said: “It helps create a smooth transition from a diesel-powered truck to an electric-powered truck”

And finally on Tesla today from Simon Alvarez at Teslarati: “The build quality of Tesla’s vehicles would likely see a notable improvement in the near future. As revealed in a recently published patent, the company is working on a new type of clamping assembly that allows some flexibility between panels during manufacturing. With such a system in place, gaps between a vehicle’s panels could be adjusted and aligned during the assembly process.” reports Simon: “Tesla’s newly published patent, titled “Clamping Assembly for Securing Together a Pair of Adjacently Located Panels,” describes a simple yet clever way to address misaligned body panels. Tesla notes that conventional clamps, which are usually utilized to attach body panels to a vehicle’s frame, are unable to connect panels and their individual tolerances effectively due to their rigid structure.”

“Utility giant ScottishPower has announced a new agreement with UK car dealership Arnold Clark to make the switch to electric vehicles (EVs) “simpler”” reports Energy Voice on today’s news; “The agreement will allow consumers to lease or buy EVs, have a charging point installed at home and sign up to a 100% renewable energy tariff. ScottishPower’s decision to partner up with a car dealership has been taken on the back of a YouGov poll with predicts a surge in interest for EVs over the next three years. The poll predicts that 1 in 5 adults who don’t currently own an electric vehicle, or aren’t currently in the process of buying one, will be considering either the purchase or lease of an electric vehicle by October 2021 – a much faster rate of change than previously predicted, with only 2% of British adults owning an electric vehicle at present.”

“Sin Cars International Eood, a Bulgarian producer of racing cars that compete in the GT4 European amateur championship series, plans to go public to finance expansion into the electric vehicle market.” reports a Bloomberg article from last week which I only just picked up on: “The sports-car maker, which contends with luxury brands including Porsche AG, Aston Martin and Maserati, seeks to raise about 20 million lev ($11.7 million) in an initial public offering on the Bulgarian Stock Exchange next year, Sin Cars owner Rosen Daskalov said in an interview at his factory in the Danube city of Russe.”

He said: “Our goal is to sell a multifunctional small city car which will be used for courier deliveries, taxi services, transportation. European cities need this kind of transport. City centres will soon be closed for diesel cars. China is far away, and we can offer a better quality.”

An Electrive report today about Germany’s Telekom: “Germany’s telecommunication company Telekom launches their charging network initiative in the country. Their first public charging station is now open and the network will grow to include up to 12,000 public EV charging stations. The clue is to use existing infrastructure says Telekom and we gathered the details exclusively.” reports Electrive: “The start has now been made in the town of Darmstadt. Here, Telekom took the first three charging stations online. In addition, the headquarters in Bonn have two premieres going on with a new converted charging station as well as the first of a planned network of 500 fast charging stations with up to 150 kW going live as well.”

“The BMW iX3 and MINI Cooper E will debut before the BMW i4 but it’s the latter that will lead the Bavarians into their EV expansion. That’s because it’s going to be an all-new, very exciting electric car that won’t be based off of any other car.” says a report picked up from BMW Blog: “Styling-wise, we know that the BMW i4 is going to draw heavily from the BMW i Vision Dynamics Concept from awhile back. That’s a good thing, as that concept was rather good looking and would set it apart from the rest of the EVs on the market. Not only is 2021 quite a long ways away, the i4 is already a bit late to the party, with the Tesla Model 3 already here and exciting the EV fanbase, the Audi e-tron GT coming soon and the Porsche Taycan on its way.”

“New car registrations in October declined by -2.9% to 153,599 vehicles as changes to emissions legislation under new WLTP rules caused shortages in the market. The onslaught on diesel continues with registrations down -21.3%. The market for alternatively fuelled vehicles (AFVs) showed strong growth, up +30.7%, supported by new models. Zero emission battery electric vehicles saw impressive growth albeit from a low base, up +86.9%, as 584 more people drove one home than in the same month last year. Hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles grew +31.0% and +19.1% respectively.”

“Nissan, together with Easycharge, intends to help a little bit to expand the charging network in Spain, which remains a relatively small market for plug-in cars (below 1% market share).” says Mark Kane for InsideEVs: “The plan is to place 100 new charging stations every 150 km (90 miles) on motorways within 18 months, however we are not sure whether those will be AC or DC. DC would obviously make more sense on highways.”

“Nissan is making this autumn even brighter for car buyers with the announcement of some dazzling offers. The limited time PCP offers are available across the manufacturer’s range until January 6th”

The best-selling electric vehicle in the UK in 2018, the award-winning Nissan LEAF epitomises Nissan Intelligent Mobility. With features such as the innovative ePedal, ProPILOT and Around View Monitor, it is available for £360 per month via a 5.99% APR representative, 37-month PCP offer following a customer deposit of £6,289.09. The deal, applicable on the N-Connecta trim, complete with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, includes a Nissan deposit contribution of £500.

COMMUNITY

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